What is it about?
Pupil size does not just respond to light — it also reflects emotions and mental effort. Researchers explored whether pupil size during mental calculations could reveal heightened math anxiety in young adults. The study found that individuals with high math anxiety showed delayed peak pupil dilation, suggesting they experience prolonged cognitive effort.
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Photo by Antoine Dautry on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Math anxiety is a significant challenge, especially for school-aged children, as it can hinder or even block academic success and limit career opportunities. However, we lack reliable tools to identify math anxiety, particularly physiological ones. Such tools are valuable because they can objectively measure the body’s automatic ('visceral') responses. This study explores pupil size as a potential physiological tool, examining its strengths and limitations.
Perspectives
The results reveal that math anxiety and mathematical competence are deeply intertwined in young adults, making it difficult to separate their effects. This highlights the profound impact math anxiety can have on lifelong mathematical skills and underscores the need for early awareness and interventions. Addressing math anxiety early on is crucial to prevent this dysfunctional association from becoming deeply rooted.
Elvio Blini
INSERM U1028, ImpAct, and Lyon Neuroscience Center
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: What pupil size can and cannot tell about math anxiety, Psychological Research, August 2024, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s00426-024-02020-0.
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